


once upon a winter (i found you yet again)

by buzuki



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/F, experimenting with first person pov so bear with me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2019-09-07 04:27:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16847125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buzuki/pseuds/buzuki
Summary: Mina is an immortal being who’s been wandering around in the forest for centuries until Momo finds her.





	1. one

There are some things I don’t understand about humans. I might never understand them due to my inherent differences but a… being can dream. 

I don’t understand their motives, what are they striving for when they know that one day all of it will be gone, everything they worked so hard to build will perish. They know it but they still care. They still live. 

This is peculiar to me. 

Not only they live but they also love. This one is a phenomenon that I can never wrap my head around. They spend their miniscule lives for other people in disguise of love. They sacrifice the little time they have so that other humans can be happy. That is really strange. 

They show compassion, for people they have never met, for imaginary characters, for animals… I don’t understand the purpose. I don’t feel it. 

These are the things running around in my head maybe for the millionth time as I roam the forest that gave birth to me. At least it is the place that I remember the most. 

I’ve been hovering on this earth for a long time. I don’t know what I am, I never did. I was just… there.

I don’t have anyone that I can ask my existence to. I just roam. That is enough for me. 

A sharp sound draws my attention, a human village is near. I look around, the white snow is covering the ground, falling from the sky in gentle motions to land on my bare feet and torn dress. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t bother wearing anything, I already have a skin and the temperature doesn’t affect me much, but humans are strange about this and I don’t want any conflict. It gets bothersome. 

A light catches my eye, humans are at it again, I think to myself. My condescending thoughts are unable to stop my curious feet as I walk towards the nicely lit village. My lack of understanding makes them more interesting after all. 

As I get closer, my senses get overloaded. Laughing, talking, fireworks, candles, colors, warm pastries, smell of meat… How do they live like this, I wonder, constantly surrounded by overbearing sensations. 

I now stand at the edge of the forest and the village, observing the mortals as they enjoy their time, I feel weary. I feel like hiding. So I do. 

I jump on the tree that stands next to me and climb my way up to the top. This way I can see them clearly, their faces, actions and enjoyment. They are peculiar. 

Hours pass and I never take my eyes of the humans, there is so much I still don’t understand. The buzz eventually dies and I slowly climb down, another lonely night awaits me. I will once again lie down and gaze up at the stars, wondering the reason for my existence. 

I sigh, when will I end, I don’t know. 

 

I lie down on the snow, cold sensation engulfing my body as my eyes count the stars once again. I am always only able to count a handful before the sun rises again but maybe today will be different. Maybe I could feel ’hope’ like a human and convince myself to count all of them.

 

As I’m nearing my hundredth star, I hear a gasp behind me. I feel like running away, like a wild animal.

But I stay. I stay still. Without even breathing. Not that I need to. 

A woman’s voice calls out to me, I don’t understand her language, I don’t know any human tongue, but it feels like she’s asking something. She walks to my side, kneeling down to see me. Her eyes are filled with an emotion I can’t understand. I feel relief wash over me, she seems harmless, I think, she looks ethereal. 

The human does look breathtaking. My inability to feel some of their emotions doesn’t get in the way of me appreciating beauty and aesthetic things. And the woman is one of them. 

Her dark brown eyes glisten with the faint light that the crescent moon provides, her black clothing with red details amplifying her figure. Her lips contrast to her skin with a lovely red as her jet black hair grazes my arm. She is still speaking but I can’t understand. I don’t need to understand. I feel, and that is enough for now. 

All of a sudden the woman touches my hands and we both shiver for different reasons. Her eyes grow large and she hurriedly says some more stuff. Mesmerizing. 

She hurries me to my feet and drags me towards the human’s town. I gradually start to feel fear. What is she going to do? Is she going to get other humans to harm me? Not that they can, believe me, I have tried, but one still fears. 

The woman leads me through streets and pushes a wooden wall. Curious. It’s a human nest, I assume. The little squares they live in. Strange, I’ve never been inside one. 

It is small, so much smaller than I would have guessed.

The woman hurries around the small space, lighting a small fire in the center of the room in a square box full of sand and some wood. Heat starts radiating. It feels nice but it is not a necessity for me. The woman mutters something that I still don't understand, gesturing me to come closer. 

I sit next to her with caution. She gets up to hurry again. I guess I would hurry if I had such a short life-span. 

Next thing I feel is a cloth wrapped around my shoulders. It feels heavy and thick on my skin keeping the warmth in and the cold out. I don't need it but I appreciate it. 

I guess this is a human's compassion. Fascinating. 

She still hurries around. Grabs a metal object, fills it with water and sets it onto the fire. I don’t know why but watching her makes me feel… something. I don’t understand it, it’s too foreign, too human. It makes my skin tingle. 

Soon, as the water starts boiling the woman takes the metal cup and goes into one of the rooms. I hear the water spilling. I wonder what she could be doing, why she could be doing that.

As an immortal being there is one thing that I'm really good at, patience. So, I wait. 

I wait and the woman repeats her process for a few more times. Then she calls out, using her gentle voice. I assume she is calling for me. I walk towards where the voice is coming from, the room she keeps disappearing into. 

It is a smaller room with tiny gaps in the walls covered with glass and a little wooden box in it. The box is full of the water she kept boiling. She gestures towards the box. I don’t understand. She shakes her head and grabs my hand, leading me towards it. 

I feel something as she tugs my dress off, revealing my bare skin. I only feel curiosity now. 

She makes me go into the box and the warm water surrounds me. I feel my muscles tense and then relax in her hands. 

I finally understand her purpose. She thought I was a human and wanted to save my life, for a human cannot withstand the harsh weather without losing their short life.

I feel something. 

The human stops hurrying at last. She just sits there, looking exhausted, I assume, just watching my face. She says a few more things but gives up when she sees that I don’t understand. She just gestures to herself and says one word.

“Momo.” 

I guess that would be her name, her calling by others. 

I don’t answer but I nod.

I don’t have an answer. I don’t have a name. I don’t have anyone to call me. 

She seems to understand somehow. 

Maybe humans are not inferior, I think as the woman helps me wash, her fingers dancing in my hair. She tries to unknot my hair for some reason but my locks are as unfamiliar to humans as me, they fail to cooperate. She sighs and grabs a glass object with purple water inside it. A strong essence fills the room, smell of a thousand flowers manifest around me. Humans are strange, they trap gardens inside their glasses. 

She smoothes my hair. I don’t understand how. 

The woman helps me out as she helped me in, and wraps me up in another cloth as her cheeks turn pink for a reason. Interesting. 

She tells me some words again but they only hang in the air between us. I don’t understand. She knows that. 

She leads me to another room once again, a one where there are cloths all over. On the floor, in a wooden box… Humans strangely love their dresses. I guess they are ashamed of their incompetent skin that can’t even keep them warm. 

She goes through the pile and hands me yet another piece of cloth. I hold it in my hands, not knowing what to do with it. She stares at me before shaking her head and dressing me into the strange two part dress. I feel warm once again, even though my wet hair is touching my dress.  She wraps my head up in the cloth she dried me with earlier, as if she heard what I thought. 

A sudden calmness surrounds us, I feel somewhat tired. It is bizarre, I have never felt it this much before. 

She smiles at me, uttering a few more words. I still don’t have a clue, but I get it. I get her emotions. They are warm. 

They are human. 

I spend the entire night, watching the light from the flames lick her unconscious face, wondering if I will ever be able to fall dead temporarily like her. 

There is a lot that I don’t understand. 

 

//

 

There are too many sounds, more than I can tolerate. 

She is dragging me in crowded streets, full of humans and their tiny cube houses. Some of them are open on one side and people hang around it, exchanging stuff with each other. Copper and metal circles are apparently the most desired thing for humans. I see them the most. 

Momo holds my hand and leads me towards one of them. We go inside and Momo once again gestures me to sit. She is speaking to me, knowing full well that I don’t understand, but I guess her hope and persistence is what makes her human. 

She pulls a wooden table in front of her and places two pieces of cloth on top of it. She grabs a metal pine needle and pulls a hair from its little hole at the back. She starts stabbing the cloth repeatedly. 

What a strange way to pass time. 

I don’t understand where she’s going with all this until she stops after a while and holds up the two pieces of cloth that were separated before that she somehow united, smiling.

It dawns on me, she is making clothes to wear. 

Amazing. 

She gives me some torn looking material and a blunt metal needle with a hair on it. She wants me to copy her movements. I do. It doesn’t look as proper as hers. 

I frown, how is Momo, a mere mortal, better than me? 

I try again. 

Still, not that good. 

I hear a giggle, Momo is covering her mouth with her hand. 

She is laughing at me. 

I frown more. 

Her hand rubs my shoulder as if to pity me. I feel something.

 

I ignore it. 

 

And I continue to ignore throughout our days and my nights. Snow melts, mother nature gives birth to flowers, a sweet warm wind surrounds us, sun starts to get hotter and I still ignore it. 

I still don’t understand her, she still doesn’t know me but we share a small wooden nest. That is enough for me. 

I stretch my legs as the sun rises, pretending to be sleepy. I act a lot more human, now that the time has passed. I learn their ways, not so much their language. 

Baby steps, I tell myself. 

I feel Momo nudging my shoulder, she’s holding something in her palm. She speaks very excitedly. 

“Momo!” 

In her hands, there is a fruit. I’ve seen it on trees when it was warm, just like this. But why is she saying her own name?

I tilt my head to the side, as if to question her. I point to her, “You… Momo? This… momo?” 

She laughs and nods. Strange, she has the same name as a fruit. 

When will a fruit name me? 

She hands it to me, expecting me to eat it. I’ve been eating a lot more these days. I don’t need it like they do but I don’t want to be rude. 

I take it and bite into it. A sweet, sugary taste fills my mouth, its water spilling onto my dress. I should have eaten it earlier. It tastes extraordinary. 

As I hungrily eat a few more, she watches me with curious eyes. When I finally look up she laughs. I only understand a few words she speaks.

“You… hungry?” 

I shake my head and just reply. “Delicious.” 

I look at the last bite left in my head. I frown. 

She asks me why. 

“Me name what?” 

I know it sounds strange, she speaks with grace and I stumble around word as if I’m drunk. 

She thinks for a moment, her hands are rubbing her chin. She smiles at last, she found something. 

“You are Mina.” 

The human is generous enough to give me a name. 

I might keep it. 

 

___

 

My days are good, even if they are mirroring each other. Momo and I continue to make dresses for other humans to wear, we always go home just before the sun sets, Momo makes another one of her human meals, making me eat with a stern face. I appreciate this pattern we have. 

“Mina, you look so beautiful.” Momo says as she puts her chin on my shoulder while I get ready for the day in front of our mirror. 

 

The last twelve years have turned me into a human but I’m not complaining. I smile at her, not wanting to give an answer, even though I am more than capable of speaking her language now. I don’t know how to explain to her that I don’t age like her. That I will never age like her. 

“I don’t know how you still look exactly like how I found you in the forest.” She says, her gaze feels like gentle licks of summer breeze on my skin. I appreciate it. “Well, a lot cleaner.” 

I laugh, it is something I learned during my first years here. It is relaxing to do. “I can thank you for that, Momo.” 

“Who knew such beauty laid beneath all that dirt and mess of a hair?” She mutters as she combs my hair. It’s not that I can’t do it on my own but I think she likes doing it. I don’t interfere. 

“Opposed to you, who was never… not beautiful.” I say, looking at the girl in the eyes through the mirror. A small smile appears on the girl’s face. I feel something in my stomach flip. That started happening a lot since I met her. Maybe I should stop eating human food. 

“Even when I was barely alive 3 years ago?” She asks, teasing me. I shudder thinking about the incident. She fell ill, humans apparently do that. Her temperature was higher and she lost all her consciousness. It was the scariest thing I experienced in my endless life.

“You know I will never find you not beautiful.” I say, smiling back at her. 

“What about when I will get all wrinkly and saggy one day? Will you still find me pleasant?” Momo asks, frowning a little as her eyes look at my unchanged skin. I sigh. 

“How can I not? Will it be a different soul in your body?” I ask, she shakes her head. “Then, why would I look at you differently?” 

She giggles and I feel like bathing in her smile. 

“Mina ~~” She says, slapping my arm gently. “Such a charmer…” 

“I only charm you.” I say, grinning. It is a thing I picked up from young boys downtown, it’s fun to see Momo’s reactions to it. 

She blushes, a fascinating red takes over her, blemishing her cheeks with it. She scoffs and turns her back to me. “I’m sure you say that to other girls as well.” 

I nudge at her belly, trying to get her to turn back around. She taught me these mannerisms of subtle flirtation even if she never intended to do so. She never intends but she bewitched me anyways. “There is only you for me. For all eternity.” I tell her, I don’t mean to be possessive but I can’t help when honesty begs to get out of me, clashing against my pursed lips. 

“Oh, you don’t mean that. And, it’s not like you’re going to live forever. Even you can’t beat death with your youthful as ever face, Mina.” She says, she averts my gaze as if afraid of letting herself get lost in me. I can understand it, she has a limited, fragile life, it is a serious burden to live it for another. But when I’m taking the risk of grieving for eternity by loving her, can’t I expect some affection back? I sigh again. 

“Momo… about that…” I start with, I managed to avoid the subject so far, I was pretty successful at it to be honest. However, I can’t hide forever, even if I want to. And I can’t possibly lie to her, I can’t look her in the eyes, the eyes that gave me life to begin with, and utter words that I know are not loyal to the truth she deserves. “I’ve been keeping a secret from you. About myself.” 

Momo’s shy smile gets quickly replaced by a quisitive arch of her brows when she sees on my face that I am not joking around. 

“Is this about… your previous life? The one you had before I found you in the forest?” She asks me, fear passes through her eyes like a weary traveler. 

“Sort of.” I tell her, I don’t know how to phrase things to get it over with quickly. She deserves a full explanation but I don’t know if I have one to give. So I just blurt it out. “I’m immortal.” 

I watch her face as she continues to stare at me, doubt clearly evident on her face. She breaks into a unsure laughter. “Come on, Mina, stop fooling around!” 

“I wish I was.” I tell her, taking a step back as if it would make everything better. As if distancing myself a bit would make me a human, make me worthy of her. I walk towards our bedding and throw myself on it, as if the sleep I can’t fall into can take the reality away. I don’t want to look at her but I know she’s waiting for me to explain. So I do. 

“I’ve been wandering this earth for the past, I don’t know how many years. I’m not human, I don’t think that I am at least. I don’t sleep, I don’t breathe, I have a heartbeat only when I want to, I don’t have to eat, I don’t get too cold or hot. I simply lack everything you are.” I start. I don’t know how else to describe it. “When you found me, I didn’t speak your language because I never spoke to a human before. I always hid away, I observed but from afar.”

I feel her sit onto the other edge of the bedding. Her breathing makes me feel anxious. I became too human, my thoughts haunt me, I let their weaknesses infect me.

“I only ever felt… things for you. Because of you.” I feel the tears travel down my cheeks but I don’t blink them away, I let them race to their ends in their own pace, just like humans. “This is why I don’t age, I can not age. I want to, God knows I want to age and just die already but I can’t.” 

There is an uncomfortable silence that reminds me of my time in the forest. Walking a lonely road with no end or purpose, completely stripped of any motivation, only feeding the void inside me as I pay no mind to the thorns pricking my bare feet. My fear of her rejection, even worse, her fear of me, the creature she now sees me as, makes me want to run away. Run away and rush to the opposite direction whenever I see a human again. 

The pregnant silence gives birth to an ugly child by my hands again. “Are you… afraid of what I am?” 

I finally find the courage to turn my head to her direction. Her face is puzzled with all sorts of emotions. I can’t decipher anything. Humanity is hard, people are impossible yet irresistible at the same time. “What even are you, Mina? Or do you have another name? Did I force this name upon you?” She asks, her voice smaller than a grain of sand washed up to the beach of her thoughts. I only hear pity in it. 

“I don’t know. I just… came to be. I don’t have a start that I remember of, as I’ve said I’ve been a wanderer for ages.” I answer truthfully, there is no other human in this world that deserves it more. 

“Was… was it lonely?” She asks, her hand lands on my arm like a feather. “All those years, without even sleep, it must have been lonely for my Minari.” 

I honestly feel like floating, this is the only way I can describe the feeling of lightness within me. Never once in my countless nights spent staring at her peaceful face, I thought I would get this response from her. I always feared this day. I wanted to run away before I had to deal with it but I stayed. Not because I was brave or anything, I was too scared to let go, too scared to go back to being alone, being without Momo. 

“It was.” I whisper, I let her hug me. I feel my tears staining her dress, making my face hotter. “Even if I didn’t know what companionship felt like, I felt empty. For so long, I was so alone.”

I don’t know what came over me, honestly. I’ve had a long life but never, not even once I cried like this. I cry tears of joy and relief, feeling more human than I ever knew. She’s doing the best she can as I cry my heart out to her chest, combing her hands through my hair, rubbing circles on my back and sweet words of reassurement dancing with a whisper in my ear. 

I don’t deserve this. 

“Let’s stay at home today, Minari.” 

I can only nod as I refuse to part from her. How long can I refuse though? How long can I pretend that her inevitable death won’t wreck me, leave me behind on this wretched place in millions of pieces? 

I can only cry now. 

 

__

 

“Mina. Can you bring me some water, please?” I hear Momo call for me from her bed. I can only comply these days. 

I don’t feel like talking, or living for that matter. It’s worse since I can feel it, I can feel her days ending. I can sense the flower in her heart wither, the fire within her flicker with every passing day. I know I’ll have to say goodbye but I don’t want to. I don’t want to leave. I became too human. Forty years chained my soul to hers, even if I’m not sure that I have one. 

I fill one of the cups in the kitchen and bring it to her bedside. It’s not that I haven’t seen it coming. I’ve known she was getting worse for a long time but I’ve always delayed this confrontation. I can’t handle this, I know that much about myself. 

How can I go back to Mina, the creature, when Momo gently raised Mina the Human from the ground? How can I continue to be among humans while I mourn her? How can I return to my forest and disrespect her memory? My head hurts but it's nothing compared to my non-beating heart. 

“Thank you, Mina.” She says, her voice has been cracking with age for a while now. I hate it. I hate how her human body is torturing her soul, trapping it and taking her away from me. 

I say nothing as I kneel beside her, taking her in. 

“Mina… aren’t you going to talk to me?” I hear her say, her face wrinkles when she smiles upon our eye contact. My tears prickle at my face. 

“I… I don’t think I can.” I choke out. 

“Mina… don’t do this. You knew this would happen eventually. Don’t make me feel worse about leaving you behind.” She scolds me. The lecturing tone never faded away from her, her passion still runs through her roots. I sob. “I know you can’t die or have any harm come to you physically but it doesn’t mean I don’t worry about you. There are other ways you can be unhealthy. Right here.” 

She is reaching for my head and I lie down on her stomach. I can only sob. 

“Minari… Please don’t grieve forever. I want you to love me in my next life too but you can’t do that if you are too hung up on me in this life, can you? Are you going to deprive the next Momo from your affection? The affection that gave me everything I could have ever wanted?”

I don’t know how to answer. How could I? I don’t know death. It is too foreign, too human. I feel sick as my tears travel down my face silently, I’m laying inhumanly still, because if I even let go of one hair strand, I won’t be able to stop.

“I want you to promise me, Mina. I want you to try and find happiness after I leave. Whether with my next life or with another human, I want you to try and live.”

“I can’t… Not after I’ve lost you… How can I be so shamelessly okay?” I ask with a whisper. Her hand stills in my hair. 

“Death is not shameful. Grieving is not shameful and moving on, living your life is most certainly not shameful.” She tells me, her hand cupping my chin. She says these words but there is shame in her eyes. 

“I know it’s selfish of me to keep wanting you despite the fact that I will be gone but try to find me okay? I know it’s hard, I know I could end up anywhere but try. Please.” She pleads me, as if I wasn’t already going to dedicate my life to finding her again and again and again… “I know this goes against everything I preach to you but… I don’t want to let you go, I don’t want to be forgotten.” 

I let a gasp escape my mouth as I fight an impossible battle with my sobs within. “I can never… I can never forget you, my love, not in ten and not in a million years.” 

She smiles, I notice she’s crying too. I wonder then, is death scary? Why am I the one being comforted when she has to face the end? How have I become so human that I am this selfish? 

“Are you afraid… of death?” I ask her, holding her wrinkled hand between my own. 

“Of course, even if I know I will be born again, I just feel like this is the end. I will be no more.” She says, her words are strangling her. “I want to stay. God knows I do but I can’t. Even if I love you, even if I want to share an eternity with you, I can’t.”

I cry.

I cry until her hands go cold, her eyes lose their purpose, her mouth stops running and her heart stills, leaving the husk of my Momo behind. I cry as if I’m never planning on stopping. 

I just cry. 

Sun rises, moon takes its place, they repeat their push and pull love story but I just cry. I cry for my humanity, I cry for my love, I cry for all the things I couldn’t say. I cry for her, the only  _ one _ for me. 

I can only cry. 

 

Until I pass out, right beside her cold, unresponsive body. 

 

_ “Minari! Wait for me!” I hear as I run through a meadow, sun hot on my face, sweet breeze brushing past me, weeds down below tickling my feet. I laugh, it feels warm. I feel happy. _

_ “Minariiiiii!”  _

_ I laugh more, then everything around me changes.  _

_ The meadow makes way for a bedroom, the sunlight glances at me through a candle flame, the smooth silk makes up for the freedom of the weeds tumbling around my feet. There is a body beside mine. It feels warm, I turn towards it. _

_ It’s Momo, smiling at me through the thick veil of sleep that is about to claim her away.  _

_ “Good night, Minari.” She yawns and shuffles closer to me, burying her face in my chest. It feels so warm.  _

_ I blink my eyes and this time I’m greeted by the setting sun. I don’t feel warm anymore, a shiver runs through my soul. I feel cold, I feel human.  _

 

_ I am human, I think to myself, in this life I was human.  _

 

_ I look around in panic, Momo is nowhere to be seen. As my mind is trying to make sense of what’s happening, my body runs forward, into the woods, muscles burning with purpose, tears running down with anger.  _

_ I arrive at a cabin, it looks as creepy as it feels. My body ignores my heart and kicks down the door.  _

_ “Give me the cure!” I scream as I frantically swing my sword around. I didn’t notice I had that before. “I know you are in here somewhere!”  _

_ A disturbing chuckle crawls its way into my ears. It is mocking my attempt to scare it, I can feel it.  _

_ It finally shows its face, a disfigured shape that vaguely resembles a human. Pathetic, I think to myself, pitiful. It doesn’t appreciate that.  _

_ It snares at me but I’m determined. “Give me the cure or I will burn your home to the ground!”  _

_ “I’ll build another.” The magician says mockingly, its voice glitchy and deep. “Can you make another Momo?”  _

_ Tears blur my vision, I scream and I feel my sword piercing its flesh. It’s not impressed.  _

_ “Tsk, tsk, tsk. That is not nice, Mina-san.” It says in a scolding tone. “What would Momo think?”  _

_ I scream and I stab. Again, and again, and again, and again… Until I’m covered in its seemingly endless blood. The wounds I’ve slashed open are already healing. I scream again, frustration evident.  _

_ “Be careful.” It says, wiping its face with a napkin. “You’re going to make me do something you’ll regret.”  _

_ “What more can you do to me?” I say, my tears are mixing in with its blood. I can barely hold my sword through my trembles.  _

_ “Oh, I can freeze you in time while everything else continues happening for example. I can make you forget everything and set you on a lonely path for eternity while poor Momo is at home, waiting for you to come back with a cure. She will suffer until her body gives up and you will roam around, not knowing what you did to her. But you will know once you meet and lose her again, due to you being immortal this time. Then you will remember, as she leaves your arms again, you will remember all of this, your love, your stupidity, your disrespect to me. Then you will never forget this or forgive yourself for eternity.” It says, circling around me like a predator. The last thing I see is a grin and then there is the Forest.  _

_ There is the forest and there is me. A blank sheet, with a cursed existence. I roam.  _

_ Many centuries later I lie down in the snow, my body being engulfed by the whiteness. Then I see her, my Momo.  _

 

_ Neither of us know, neither of us remember.  _

 

I gasp awake, earth filling my mouth immediately. I’m under ground. I don’t move for a while. What I remember now is giving me the worst of headaches. How will I continue living after all this? Am I even living, is maybe the right question. I sigh, it’s hard to do that with so little air. I force my way up in the surface, gasping when I make it as if I needed air. 

I look around, there are two stones behind me. One saying Mina and the other Momo. 

I have to keep on living. 

I have to find a way to live or die, somehow. 

 

I have to find that magician. 

 

I have to find Momo.


	2. two

There are still some things I don’t understand about humans. Even if my memory is coming back to me bit by bit, I feel like I might never understand them but a… woman can dream. 

It feels weird, remembering a life that belonged to me but also isn’t mine anymore. The world it was in is no longer, the people that played parts in it are long gone, places that I called home are no longer there… 

It feels like reading a story honestly, that face I remember from the mirrors are the heroines and Momo that I remember… She was my damsel in distress that I failed to save. 

As I get my memory back, my body starts to remember what it means to be human. 

I feel the needs of a human without the actual threat of death. I feel hungry but only thing that can satiate it is the fish Momo grilled for me a few centuries ago. 

I feel the thirst creeping up my throat but I can only be satisfied with the hojicha Momo made for us when it was raining outside and we had no other worries. 

I feel like crying my heart out but my heart only beats in those memories of us gazing into the universe through each other’s eyes.  

It’s been two moons since I’ve dug myself out of my grave and began searching for the magician. My previous life is coming back to me, but not in a welcoming manner. Instead it is attacking me every night after I close my eyes, like a cornered wild animal.

It all comes back to me as if I’m reading a book. I remembered my childhood first, I saw how we met during the first weeks of my newly found hobby, sleeping. 

I was born lucky, I took my first steps in a private garden, my first words were witnessed by my nanny, the first horse I’ve ridden was selected from my father’s impressive stables, my first clothes were the finest quality and the first friend I made was the best of them all. She was my nanny’s daughter, since my mother was too busy hosting tea parties to look after a snotty little kid, I would be left with my nanny and her daughter that was around my age, sweet little Momo. I remember all the fun we had, running around in the gardens, playing hide and seek in the seemingly endless rooms within the mansion, stealing food from the kitchen not because we had to but it seemed dangerous and we liked the adrenaline. It was the best of times. It was when my heart slowly started to look like a peach, only having love for one person in it. 

I keep walking as my memories flood my mind like a natural disaster slowly creeping in to erode my foundations. I would have ditched all the extra weights and return to Mina the creature for a faster journey but I feel like abandoning the piece of me that Momo gifted would be disrespectful to her. I’m wearing the dress she sow for me and carrying the rest. The necklace she always wore is hanging on my neck, reminding me of my mission with every movement. 

I know what my village looked like but a lot changes over the centuries, my family perhaps died down during the time. My brother most likely got married and inherited our family home, his children carried out our line. But, little hope is in my heart as I try to locate exactly where our hometown is. When I was… alive, I never left there or looked at a map. I only know the name of it but nobody I’ve asked so far seems to know it. 

I arrive at a tavern for the night, the owner looks at me with suspicious eyes, weary of the young woman travelling alone. I make a point to lock the door after I get into my room for the night. Being immortal doesn’t protect one from immoral acts. 

I set my parcel down onto the bed, changing into the night dress that I brought. After carefully folding my day dress, I take my journal out, setting onto the table, ready to record everything I will see in my dream tonight. I feel the excitement and anxiety creep within my veins as I set down my brush and inkwell. If I’m assuming correct, this is the night I get my answers. 

Last night in my dream, I was the age I died but there were no signs of trouble. No sickness, no cure, no magician… Just Momo and I, sharing a bed in secret, complimenting each other’s existences. 

I get under the itchy covers, forcing my mind to shut down. Sleeping now is… considerably different to what it used be like. There is no feeling of ‘falling’. I’m pretty much aware of everything happening around me; I can still feel the moonlight forcing its way through the glass, I can hear the crickets crying outside my window. I’m just… seeing snippets of my human life play before me, as I lay there, unmoving and heart still. 

It feels strange, the usual happy glow, the orangish yellow aura I sense everytime I peek into my buried memory is replaced by a cold, harsh blue. I feel like shivering, maybe I left the window open before I laid down, I don’t recall. 

I’m laying on my bed, the one I had in my room all those years ago, I can see the sun blinking her sleep away on the horizon, shooing the mischievous moon away, unaware what the night brought upon the lovely village she’s shining upon now. 

An unusually frightened scream tears through the sky, making the villagers run to their windows with curiosity and fear. I follow the sound, not willingly, I have no control over this dream, just like I have no control over the past. 

My bare feet hurry around the corridors, trying to find my shoes to go and investigate. My steps finally take me to the source of the shriek, an old woman stands in the middle of the street, crying, shaking her head in an insane manner and pointing to a house. My eyes meet with a few people, every one of them seems too scared to peek in, not knowing what awaits inside. 

I sigh and take a deep breath. I’m scared out of my mind but Mina back then was brave, I must have lost that during years of wandering around. 

I push the wooden door open, it creaks with a warning, a warning humans should heed. But I don’t, Myoui Mina doesn't. 

Inside, there is no sound, the whimperings of the old woman are muffled now. The air of the small house gives the feeling of a cave, cool and disturbingly still. As I step further in, my mind struggles to understand what my eyes are seeing. 

There is a statue in front of the small fire. A marble shell of a man shivering and it has clothes on it. Clothes and a thick blanket. My steps are going backwards as if someone is pulling back on strings attached to me. 

I get out of the house and hold the woman from her shoulders. She still hasn’t stopped shaking her head. 

“Is he your husband? Is… was he a human?” 

She stops for a second and looks back up to my eyes. I can see the insanity in them. She whispers a yes. Another scream erupts from another house. And another one, and another one. 

The scene changes and I am sitting down. My parents are arguing with the villagers. They are demanding that my father finds a cure, but he can’t either. Our family physician has nothing in his hands. 

It is like a curse. People all over the town slowly turn into statues. At first they are shivering and sneezing, acting like they have caught the common cold. Then comes the slowed down movements, eyes slowly lose their sight and then other senses follow. And finally comes the marble. Solid and unforgiving. 

Everyone points fingers to one… thing. It is obvious that this isn’t a normal disease. It is the work of some evil magic. That foul creature in the woods is the only source of that, at least that we know of. 

Even if people are enraged, I can still see the hesitation and fear in their eyes when I mention going over to it and forcing a cure out of its disgusting body. No one says anything. 

I scoff and yell in anger as I get up and exit the room. Bunch of cowards, they are. 

“Momo, you won’t believe how stupid people are.” I rant as I push her door open. It’s a small room, same as the other servants in the house. It doesn’t bother me much, considering she always stays in my room anyway. 

The disturbing thing about the room isn’t its size or the single tiny window that isn’t enough to let much air in; it’s the sight of Momo shivering under her covers, sobbing and sneezing.

She’s aware of what lies ahead. Prison of marble awaits her with a cruel smile, welcoming in an eerie way.  

Her eyes meet mine, my heart clenches painfully, this isn’t how it was supposed to happen. I rush to her side, grabbing her arm, helping her up. She needs to stay hidden while I solve this. I won’t let her go, I simply know that I won’t. 

I drag her to my room, she doesn’t protest but she is not so willing either. She stopped resisting, it kills me. 

“You aren’t going anywhere, Momo. I will find a cure. I will drag the magician back if I have to. Just don’t give up, okay?” I make her promise with tears in my eyes. 

I run to my father's weaponry, grabbing one of his swords and running out before anyone can stop me. 

The last hour of my life plays out in front of my eyes, just like it did back in my grave. 

I open my eyes and I’m greeted by the tavern’s ugly ceiling. 

I take a deep breath.

I’m ready to find the magician. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


It takes a lot longer than I thought it would. For months my feet carries me from town to town, my lips tired from asking the same questions. No one seems to remember my village. It’s like it never existed in the first place. 

After a year, I change the question I keep asking the mortals. I ask them about the cursed village, the one that has all those harrowing statues. People finally seem to understand me, I should have guessed the name of the village would be forgotten and only its misfortune would stay. 

I can’t help but gasp slightly as the heels of my shoes click on the stone roads in the abandoned village. The echo of my steps creep up my spine in an unpleasant way, making me shudder. 

 

There are a lot of unsettling things about this place. 

But what bothers me most is that nothing seems to be different. 

 

One would guess that in a place that has been abandoned for at least a century, nature would start taking over but nothing was different from the day I left. No plants crept upon the houses, no animal made nests, no scavengers looted the place… 

It is just… still. 

 

It almost feels unnatural to walk on these streets. It’s like, I’m somehow removed from life itself, I’m just wandering around in a painting of it. It’s eerie.

 

Slowly, but inevitably, I make my way towards the house in the center of the village. The house that held many great memories. The house that I haven’t seen in a long time. 

The house that I abandoned. 

 

My non-beating heart feels heavy in my chest as I stand in front of the big wooden door that used to look huge to me. I can almost see the guards standing at the sides, smiling down at the silly girl Mina running away from her tutors to go play sword with her cousins. I feel the need to knock on the door but I just push it, invading the restless peace the house has had for years. 

All of my memories flood back into my head, some making me smile, some making me blush and others cry. I’m about to get into the house when I see the first statue. 

What makes my blood freeze is that I remember her, an old maid that has been with my family ever since I could remember. She looks like she’s looking down at the well in front of her, about to get some water. 

I want to get closer but something stops me, am I really ready to see all these people, people that I’ve cherished, shared my meals with, spent my life with, as nothing more than marble statues. 

 

Am I ready to see Momo? 

 

There is not an answer to that question, at least not one I can stomach. My steps are hesitant as I push the door, nothing felt more dreary to me before this moment. I am greeted with a smell that is foreign to me, but then again who knows the smell of a centuries old house that hasn’t been touched. 

My survival instinct which has been clawing its way up from my gut goes insane as I see a few more statues on the halls, some are on their knees, looking at the ground with a morbid expression and some are crying with desperation evident on their faces. I recognize a few and would probably can name them all but I choose not to look at them. It’s too much, I can’t handle it. 

I stop in front of Momo’s old room, not knowing if witnessing her death for the second time in such a short period is a wise thing to do. Holding my breath, I slowly open her door only to find it empty. My heart gets filled with pathetic hopeful thoughts of ‘Maybe she’s alive.’ before I shake them away, and step away from the room. 

Where can she be? 

 

I roam around the house, trying to avoid looking at anyone to spare myself the tears but it’s hard to do when I’m looking for someone. My last stop is maybe the most obvious one, the room I left Momo in, my own room. 

 

It is a strange feeling, stepping into the room I had all those years ago. Everything is so familiar yet so distant. 

 

Before I get a chance to look around the room, my eyes land on a figure. A young girl in a silk robe is sitting on her knees, tiredness can be seen on her shiny marble face, her eyes are focused on what she’s holding in her hand, a piece of paper that she has a death grip on. 

 

Momo the statue is there for me to see, to grieve. I don’t know if seeing her made anything better, I think as my heartache echoes through my body. I feel like I don’t know anything anymore. 

 

My steps are hesitant yet aware of what needs to be done as I make my way towards her, my knees choose the right moment to give out and I feel myself falling to my knees, tears falling down my cheeks uncontrollably. I chant her name, mumbling as I fearfully caress her solid cheeks, shivering because of the cold marble. 

“I did this to you.” I whisper to her, as if she could hear me, as if there is anybody who could hear me. “I deserve this.” 

 

She doesn’t respond, her expression stays the same as expected. I don’t know, I just don’t know if I should stay there any longer. 

 

My body doesn’t obey my logic and leans onto Momo’s stone body, as if I deserve to feel her non-existing warmth. I hum her our favorite song as I sob, the sweet melody being slaughtered by my grieving voice. 

I don’t know how long I stay there, shivering as I tell her all about our life together. I tell her about how she taught me to be human again, how she saved me from myself. Even though I know she isn’t there, even pretending to be with her soothes my heart. 

 

“I need to go and find the magician. I feel like it’s still alive. It’s too foul to just… die.” I say as I gaze into her cold eyes, sighing. “I feel like it can reverse this, let me die and I can just be born again as a human and find you.” 

Ignoring Momo’s lack of response, I finally allow myself to take a look at what Momo is holding in her hand. It takes effort and caution but I manage to pull the paper from her grip without damaging her or it. 

I hesitate a second before I unroll the paper that sits uncomfortably in my hand, what if it’s not for me? What if it is for me but she wrote about how she never loved me and how it’s all my fault that she died? How could I ever handle such a thing?

I hurriedly unroll the letter to avoid changing my mind. It’s not a long letter, it only has a few sentences scribbled onto it. I can tell from the sloppiness of her handwriting and the ink stains that she wrote this in her last moments. 

 

_ Mina. It’s okay, it’s not your fault, you tried. I know you will blame yourself, don’t do that, be happy that our lives were intertwined. And pray that we meet again, love again.  _

 

_ Faithfully yours until our every end, Momo.  _

 

She knows me too well, I think as I get loud with my sobbing once again, even after centuries, she knows me better than anyone else. 

 

After what feels like an eternity I feel myself calm down. I get on my feet, trying to balance myself after sitting down for so long. I carefully roll her letter once again and stash it in my parcel. I figure it’s time to go and move forward.

I look down at her figure one last time before leaning and giving her forehead the lightest of kisses. 

“Until we meet again, love again.” I whisper. 

When I get out of that room after fighting the irresistible urge to look back, my muscle memory takes me to a room I remember very vividly. My father’s weaponry. I see a few more faces but I avoid looking at them, pretending they are just statues for my own sake. 

The weapons, like the whole town, are just like how I saw them last. None of them are rusty, none of their wooden handles are rotten. As if they tore through the fabric of time itself. 

I grab a pair of twin swords and get out of that room only to run away. The sight of the house, the village is unbearable after having seen Momo, knowing that I knew them and lived with them is just creepy and surreal. 

My muscle memory takes over once again and before I know it, I feel like I’m reliving my last moments as a human. 

The magicians hut is still there, just like everything else. I hate it, it should have rotten away. 

 

My hand pushes the old creaky door just like how it did the last time, I’m filled to brim with an eerie feeling again. It’s easier to be creeped out when the life of your lover isn’t on the line. 

 

“I know you’re in there!” I yell as I take a step inside, not knowing if I’m yelling at and for nothing. My suspicions are confirmed when I hear a creaking-like cough from inside. I try to see it but with the sun going down, I don’t have much luck. 

It coughs again and suddenly the fireplace that is covered in dust catches on fire. I jump a little at that and hear a condescending snort. 

“It’s so easy to scare you humans.” It says, voice worse than I remember. “Just a bunch of arrogant animals who think they are gods, you all are.” 

“What about you? You’re the one who plays god.” I say, feeling nauseous as my gaze falls on its body, it’s as sickening as I remember and maybe even a bit worse. 

“I knew you would come back, Mina.” It says with a weak grin. “I expected you much sooner but I guess I expected too much of you.”   

“I wouldn’t have to come back if you just left us all alone.” I say through my gritted teeth. 

“Ah, yes. I agree. It was a mistake, cursing you.” 

I take a step back, I didn’t expect it to agree with me. “Then why did you?” 

“As I said, humans are arrogant animals who think too highly of themselves and old habits die hard, even when you’re as old as me.” It says, coughing a few more times. “I overestimated my capabilities and caused my own demise, so yes, it was a mistake.” 

“Explain.” I say, pointing my sword to it. 

“Ah, of course you would need explaining, a few centuries didn’t work all that well for your intelligence, did it?” It says, chuckling, and doesn’t stop when I pierce its skin with the tip of my sword as a warning. “I thought I could curse you and walk away like nothing happened. I was wrong, the curse was too strong for me and ate up most of my life energy and magic. Now I’m waiting for someone to kill me since I can’t die a natural death. That is why I’m glad you came back, you’re perfect for the job. You, a mere, pathetic human, are stronger than me at this point.”

 

I lower my sword a little, too confused at what is actually happening. The being that damned me really has the audacity to ask me to end its misery, huh? I growl at it angrily. “Why would I ever help you? You can rot here forever for all I care.” 

“Because you also want a way out.” It says, sounding almost bored. “I can help you end it all, not as quick as you would have wanted but it’s still something.”

I hate that it knows how to pull my strings. “How can you do that when you can’t even end yourself?” 

“I can tell you how you can die.” It says. “Knowledge is a power I’m yet to lose.” 

I stand there for a few moments, trying to decide if it’s worth it.

“How will I manage to kill you? Last time I tried, I wasn’t all that successful.” I say, gesturing to my sword. 

“This time, I want to die and I have close to no magic on my side. I am nearly back to being a worthless human. It won’t take much to do the job.” It says, sighing as it tries to stand up. “So, do we have a deal?” 

I nod hesitantly and it grins. A small gust of wind surrounds us and glows faintly. “You promised, you have to kill me now.” 

“Tell me all you know and I will do so.” I say, nudging its shoulder with my sword. 

“You will be a human again, if you manage to find her one more time. My magic only managed to freeze you in time through one soulmate cycle. If you find her again, it will be broken and you two will age together and die and all that humanly nonsense. But she does need to remember you, which normally cannot happen but I will play nice and give you the last drop of my magic so that you can make her remember.” It says in one breath, almost too eager to die. Its claw-like hands raise to my chest and glow. It whispers into my ear in a language I don’t know and I feel a rush of energy course through my veins, my heart beats for the first time after a long wait. When it retracts its hand, my heart goes back to being still again. “There. All you need to do is to find her, touch her heart just like I touched yours and then you get the ending you want.” 

 

I stare at my hand, as if waiting for it to do something when I hear the creature puff in annoyance. “It won’t do anything now, you fool.” It says. “Now, finish your end of the deal.” 

 

“With pleasure.” I say as my sword goes through its heart and takes off the grin off its face. I sigh in relief and make my way outside of the hut. 

 

I look around, there is nothing around me except the faint figure of the town on the horizon and the hut behind me. The sun sets completely as my fate dawns on me.

 

I have to keep on living. 

I have to find a way to live in order to die.

 

I have to find Momo. Again.


	3. three

Humans are still foolish. They fantasize about living for an eternity, not knowing the dullness it brings within. I lived through it, I lived through more years than I bothered to count. I roamed around the entire world, been to every civilization that was out there, just with the hope that maybe, maybe my Momo was reborn among them. Alas, I came up empty handed. 

As the overly excited people on my television screen countdown from ten to celebrate the world taking yet another boring lapse around the sun, I sigh. The clock strikes midnight and the host of the show yells as my tired eyes watch. 

“Happy 2019 everyone!” 

Annoyed, I shut it off. What is another year good for if Momo keeps hiding from me? What am I living, no, suffering for? When will it all end, when will my eternal curse break? 

I take another sip from the wine I made myself, all the way back in 1895. It doesn’t do much for me, not having a beating heart prevents getting alcohol into your bloodstream effectively but I still get a little lightheaded. 

Knowing that wallowing in my own misery will do me no good, I get up from my seat and stretch. I should be doing something to keep my mind busy and away from the pain and yearning that’s been growing inside my heart for centuries. When you’ve been alive for more than a millennia, keeping yourself busy is easier said than done. I tried my hand in every imaginable career and hobby that existed and learned every language I came across with the hopes of communicating with Momo in her other lives. I simply find it hard to keep myself distracted enough to not be melancholic.  

Looking around the house I live in, nothing but my laptop draws my attention to itself, all those instruments I once played are left to rot in corners, all of my artworks blend into the background, losing their value in my eyes. Work it is then. 

After looking through my mail accounts, I settle on the one that handles the Japanese branch of my company. During my lifetime, I invested a lot, because when the day comes, I wanted Momo to have the best life possible, full of riches and comfort. But my absolute biggest and most important investment was the Marble Museum Village. I vowed to myself once I left that magician’s hut, thousands of years ago, that I would protect my village and make sure everyone knew what happened to us. I wasn’t going to let history erase us, burying the whole village into its pages. So I claimed the land, I fought off every invader that came to seize or ransack it. There weren’t many, since it was known that the village was cursed. I helped spread the rumors, I said that anyone who dared to step in the village would be curse their own blood with bad luck for generations. It worked, even when I went away for years, I always found the village untouched. Then I decided to sit down and write what happened there. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I filled thousands of pages, telling them all about the lives of my people, our customs, our culture, everything. And I wrote about Momo, I wrote about our love, I wrote about her kind soul and beautiful face. 

Now I’m glad that I wrote it back then, it helped me make my case to the world today. In these modern times, people no longer take anyone’s word for any fact, you have to have proof, you have to back everything up with science. So, when I opened the village to the public and invited archeologists, anthropologists and linguists, it stunned them. I, an ‘inheritor’, had something so unique and unexplainable in my possession and people were bewildered. The statues were there, the entire village looked like it was frozen in time, no restorations were done yet not even a single piece of wood rotted, there were detailed books about the villages history that I wrote myself thousands of years ago… The world was intrigued. 

That was a century ago, I was Myoui Airi back then, I never showed my face to the public, knowing that I would have to explain why my children and their children were all woman and looked exactly like me. However, it is harder these days, there have been people who managed to take pictures of me and the internet is dangerous, I am afraid that somebody will make the connection. 

I clicked through pages of mails, nearly all of them opened and replied to. When I refresh the page, a new mail appears. It is from the man that I put in charge of the museum. 

 

**From:** [ **HideyoshiAkihiro@marblemuseum.com** ](mailto:HideyoshiAkihiro@marblemuseum.com)

**To:** [ **MyouiCEO@myouicorp.com** ](mailto:MyouiCEO@myouicorp.com)

 

**Myoui-san,**

 

**An offer was made to us by a Korean author named Park Jihyo. She contacted my secretary with a book idea that was inspired by the museum’s history. I know that you normally decline these offers but I saw a lot of her books in your office and thought you would want to decide this one yourself. I will forward you their e-mail. Let me know your decision, I can deal with the entire process if you see fit. I’m sorry to have disturbed you during New Year’s.**

 

**Happy New Year**

**Respectfully,**

**Museum Manager Hideyoshi Akihiro**

 

I arch my eyebrows with interest, Park Jihyo has been one of those authors that I admired from the first work, a novel about the streetgangs of Seoul and how the women run the business behind closed doors. Since then, she continued to fascinate me with her art.

I eagerly open her mail, reading through it quickly. 

 

**From:** [ **ParkJihyo@JYPublishing.com** ](mailto:ParkJihyo@JYPublishing.com)

**To:** [ **HideyoshiAkihiro@marblemuseum.com** ](mailto:HideyoshiAkihiro@marblemuseum.com)

 

**Hello Hideyoshi-san,**

 

**I would like to introduce myself first, my name is Park Jihyo and I’m a bestseller author known by my books such as The Awakening of the Streets, Girls Like Us, Sunset and many more. I would like to make an offer to the museum and the management to collaborate on a novel idea that I have. I want to write the story of two particular people mentioned in the Books of Marble; Myoui Mina, the heiress and Momo the servant girl. A lot of historians are doing their best to interpret their story as a timeless friendship but it is obvious to everybody that these two women were in love. I want to put a stop, or at least show my resistance against the LGBTQ erasure from history, I want to help show the world history with all its colors, not just black and white.**

 

**I am going to be writing this book even if you reject my offer but it would be really great if you backed my book up and made it official, helping me and the LGBTQ community make further progress towards a better future. I really hope you take this email seriously and give me a date to come and visit the museum with my translator.**

 

**Respectfully,**

**Author Park Jihyo**

 

**[This document has been translated by Hirai Momo.]**

 

No, is the first thing that crosses my mind, it’s not her. If I believed every Momo in Japan to be her, I would get my heart crushed a million times by now. 

But still, something in my heart that has been silent for a long time feels alive for some reason. Maybe it is the festive times getting to me. 

I sit still for a second, not knowing what to do. What if it’s really her? What if my search finally came to an end? 

I make up my mind and start typing. 

 

**From:** [ **MyouiCEO@myouicorp.com** ](mailto:MyouiCEO@myouicorp.com)

**To:** [ **HideyoshiAkihiro@marblemuseum.com** ](mailto:HideyoshiAkihiro@marblemuseum.com)

 

**Hideyoshi-san,**

 

**Thank you for choosing to inform me on this matter, I really like her writings indeed. I want you to reply to her and set an appointment for next week with me. Do not mention that I know Korean and tell her to bring her translator along, mention that we will be paying for her services. I have a really good feeling about this book.**

 

**Happy New Year to you and the rest of the staff too.**

**Sincerely, Myoui Mina, CEO**

  
  


//

 

“They will be arriving in an hour, ma’am. The driver is at the airport to pick them up.” says Hideyoshi standing at the door of my office. The middle aged man looks at me with curiosity in his eyes, yet he is too professional to pursue his personal wonderments. 

“You can ask whatever is clouding your mind, Hideyoshi-san.” I say, leaning back in my chair to ease the butterflies in my stomach. “What is it?”

Hideyoshi comes into the room and sits at the chair as I gestured him to do so. 

“I was wondering, why did you insist on the translator? I know that you speak fluent Korean.”

I smile a little. “I recognized the name of the translator, I think I know her from elementary school, wanted to see if that is indeed her.” 

Trying to ease my nerves and kill the pathetic sprout of hope that’s trying to bloom inside my heart, I glance outside of the office. Marble statues lifelessly stare at me from the place they’ve been standing for centuries. Sighing, I close my eyes for a brief moment before looking back at Hideyoshi. 

“Actually, Hideyoshi-san,” I start, not quite knowing what to say in a helpless blabber, “This friend, she was very precious to me during elementary school. I was devastated when we’ve lost contact. But now, it’s been such a long time that I’m afraid of seeing her again. What if we’ve grown so apart and unfamiliar to the point of no reconnection?”

Hideyoshi smiles in a way that makes the wrinkles around his temples visible. There’s a sudden cheerful spark in his eyes. “You sound very excited to reunite with this friend, ma’am. I think it’s the first time that I’ve seen you so… lively.” 

Not knowing if I should be offended by his words, I huff all of a sudden, annoyed by the inclination of the people around me to treat me as a youngster. “Well, I must say that I was very… attached to this friend.”

“I see.” He indicates, a hand scratching his now whitening beard, “Then I should assure you that it’s all going to be alright, ma’am. Since you are insisting that this friend was important to you, I’m sure you’ll do everything you can do to keep her in your life.”

I nod, lost in thought once again as he excuses himself out of the room. I deny myself the joy of allowing myself to hope or dream again, yet I can’t control the flooding thoughts of mine. 

I’ve lost my concept of time during the years I’ve lived through, but this time the hour that I spent waiting for the writer and her translator to arrive feels longer than the entirety of my lifetime. The slow minutes pass at last, and the door opens, revealing the face of my secretary. 

“Miss Park Jihyo and her crew is here, ma’am. Should I let them in or do you want to take more minutes?”

“Let them in, please.” I say, maybe a little too quickly. My assistant’s eyebrows shoot up in a questioning manner but she still complies her task.

Finally, Park Jihyo slips into the room after a few firm knocks. But my eyes only see one thing. 

 

The eyes that stared at me thousands of years ago is there, in my presence once again. Just like when we were kids in this house, and just like when she found me lying down on the snow that one night, her eyes greet mine, even if she doesn’t know it yet. It feels so unreal, even ridiculously like a mirage yet it’s real, so real that I could touch her if I lifted a hand to reach. Momo’s here, Momo’s alive and she’s actually, physically here. I can’t shake the shock and happiness off even if I notice Park Jihyo stare at me intently, a little bit confused. 

“Myoui-sshi.” She starts, holding out her hand for me to shake after bowing, “It’s such a great pleasure to meet you.” 

I tear my eyes off of Momo at last, shaking the author’s hand firmly. I’m a little bit embarrassed of my actions. 

I hear Momo’s voice translating Jihyo’s words to Japanese, it’s like music to my ears after such a long time. I take a shy glance at her and start speaking in Japanese as well, not giving up on my scheme of pretending to be not fluent in Korean.

“My pleasure as well, Park-san, I’ve been a big fan of your works for years now.”

I try to be subtle as possible while listening to Momo translate my words with her beautiful voice that I haven’t heard in a very,  _ very  _ long time. It still feels surreal to me that she is right there in front of me, my salvation and the reason of my existence. 

The rest of the meeting goes by rather slower than I would have liked. I didn’t think that Park Jihyo would be this talkative but all is well at the end as she shakes my hand with enthusiasm. 

“I am so glad that you decided to sponsor my book, Myoui-sshi. I will work my hardest and write a great book that can make this place proud.” 

I shake her hand as if I didn’t understand a word she said and turn to Momo smiling. 

“She says, she is very happy about the sponsorship and she will work very hard to write a great book to make you and this museum proud.” 

“Well, it is my duty to help our rich history flourish into something beautiful in the hands of a professional that I admire.” I say, getting up from my seat and bowing deeply. “Thank you for coming, Park-san. And thank you for translating, Hirai-san.” 

She smiles at me politely as she gets up. “It is my job, Myoui-san.” She says and turns to the author to translate. 

Just as they are about to leave, I manage to speak up. “Hirai-san, would you please stay behind for a second I would like to talk about your salary.” 

She looks at me with uncertain eyes as Park Jihyo sends a questioning look at her. 

“She wants me to sit with her and talk about my salary. Can you please make an excuse for me, I don’t want to stay alone with her, she’s been staring at me too much, it’s a bit creepy.” Momo says to Jihyo in Korean, her smile doesn’t falter, not giving away her distaste for me. 

Jihyo looks back and forth between us, not sure what to do. “I can pay her myself, you don’t really need to. I really appreciate the effort but I am willing to pay.” 

I’m about to respond before Momo translates but I manage to hold myself back. 

“She says that she already dealt with my payment, you don’t need to worry about it. She thanks you for your consideration.” 

“Ah, is that so?” I say, getting more and more annoyed by the minute. Who does Momo think she’s kidding? I waited thousands of years for her and now I’m  _ creepy _ ? I looked for her all over the world and she thinks I’m staring too much? Well, excuse me, Hirai Momo but I’ll have you know…

My internal monologue is cut off by Park Jihyo’s awkward cough. I shake my head slightly and smile. “Oh, sorry, I got lost in thought for a second.” I say, trying to look genuine. “Now that the issue is dealt with, I can give you a tour of the museum if you would like, Park-san.”

“Oh, of course! I came here once before but I’m sure it will be very different with the heiress leading the way.” Jihyo says enthusiastically when Momo translates to her. I smile at Jihyo warmly and get up from my seat without even glancing at Momo. If she wants to play like this, then I’m in. She will soon learn the patience of an immortal woman. 

The entire tour lasts about five hours as I go into detail about every single detail to my very engaged listener, Park Jihyo. As we roam around the village, I don’t spare even a single look at Momo, ignoring her presence and sometimes speak too fast for her to translate. I know it’s a petty thing to do but I did wait very long for her and she’s the one who started it. 

“And I think that concludes our tour. I will show you another room next time you’re here, I think you will like it very much.” I say holding out my hand to the author. “My driver will drop you off at your hotel, thank you for coming once again.” 

“Actually, if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to walk around the village for a while. I want to soak it up entirely to represent it as it is in the book.” Jihyo says, a little shy. I smile at her as Momo translates.

“Of course, you can take as much time as you want.I will be in my office, tell Daichi-san when you want to be dropped off. Good day.” 

After seeing both of them walk away from the main building, I sigh deeply and turn around on my heels. 

This went way different than I thought it would go. Our reunion wasn’t how I dreamed of, she didn’t look into my eyes for the first time and fall deeply in love again, there weren’t flower petals surrounding us, a sweet melody was absent during our eye contacts. What happened was, she thought I was a creepy woman who kept staring at her to the point she felt uncomfortable. 

I push open the doors to my old bedroom, where my Momo’s statue sits. It’s the only restricted part in the museum, no one except me is allowed in it. I couldn’t let irrelevant people come in here and disrespect her last moments. 

 

I sit next to her and close my eyes, I need time to think, to make a plan. I can’t just walk up to her and put my hand on her chest now, can I? She already thinks I am weird for staring at her, unconsciously might I add, she would be filing a restraining order if I tried to make her remember. 

My sighing fills the room once again, I just can’t decide what I should do. I don’t even know what kind of life Hirai Momo has other than being a translator. What if she already has someone she loves, what if she’s married? What if she doesn’t like women? What if she doesn’t remember me and this is all just a mean prank that the magician is playing on me?

 

My thoughts get cut in half when I hear the door creak, signaling that someone is standing in front of the room. I don’t bother opening my eyes. “I told you before, Hideyoshi-san, I don’t want to be disturbed when I’m in this room, meditating.” 

 

“Uhm, I’m sorry to disturb you, I was looking for the bathroom and I got lost- Is that… Is that a statue of me?” 

 

My eyes open frantically upon hearing her voice, I try to cover up the statue but she already managed to see it. I get up from my seat awkwardly and scratch my neck. “I found it weird as well. That is why I accidentally looked at you for a bit too long when you came into my office. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

Momo looks taken aback from what I’ve said but her curious eyes are still on the statue. “It’s okay, I wasn’t weirded out or anything.” She says and points at the marble Momo. “Would you mind if I look at it up close?”

I’m about to refuse when she looks at me pleadingly and melts all of my restraints away. “Of course.” I say, like a weakling. “Just don’t touch her.”

A few minutes pass and Momo is still staring at her own statue. “This is so bizarre. She looks exactly like me, like, from head to toe, she is my _exact_ copy.” 

I try to joke a bit. “Well, she’s a bit older than you so you would be her exact copy.” 

She chuckles a bit before turning her eyes at me. “Why isn’t this room open to the public?” 

I blank out for a second, not knowing how to respond. “Uhm…” She raises one of her eyebrows. “The woman that wrote the Books of Marble, my oldest known ancestor Myoui Mina, we share a name interestingly, wrote in her will that this room, her room was not to be touched. We honored her wishes so far…” 

She falls quiet for a second, looking around the room. “Is that her, the statue?” 

I shake my head no, “She wasn’t affected from the curse for some reason, she wrote the books and died in a nearby village in her old age.” 

Momo doesn’t look satisfied with my answer. “Why wasn’t she affected? Was she the one that cursed the village maybe? How do you know all this and who is this then?” 

I take a step back, not knowing how to handle this situation. “I don’t have all the answers, all of my knowledge comes from family heirlooms.” 

“You don’t know who this is then?” She asks with a disbelieving expression on her face. 

“Of course I know who she is, she is the love of m-” I say with an annoyed tone, not able to stop myself from reealing to much. “Love of Mina. My ancestor Mina. Not me. Hahaha.” 

Momo looks genuinely creeped out as she’s walking backwards towards the door. “Okay… I should leave now. Have a good day, Myoui-san.” 

Before I know what I'm doing I run after her into the corridor and grab her wrist. “Look, I’m sorry, I’m really not a creep!” 

Momo tugs her hand out of my grasp and pushes me back. “Will you stop acting like one then?” 

I gasp audibly as I regain my balance. “Did you just _push_ me?” 

“You were being weird!” She says, a bit too loud. 

Not being able to calm down, I push her back. “You barged into my private r-” 

The last word stays in my throat as I crouch down with the sudden pain in my chest. What is happening? Why does my heart hurt? I look up, tears of pain are clouding my vision but it is clear that Momo is also on the ground but she is unconscious. 

The last thing I mumble is her name as my world fades to black as well.

 

//

 

The thing that comes back to me first is the sounds around me, I hear quite chatter, machines beeping and some papers being shuffled. It sounds suspiciously like I’m in a hospital. I open my eyes in panic and look around to see that I indeed am on a hospital bed. I’m screwed, they probably found out that I don’t have a functioning heart and they will experiment on me forever. I try to rip the IV drip off my arm when my eyes catch my heart monitor. 

 

**❤** BPM 123

 

I blink a few times, trying to process what my eyes are seeing but it is confirmed when I put my hand on my chest. I feel that sensation of blood flow and heartbeat that I haven’t experienced in a long time. But how? 

Thinking about what got me into this situation opens my eyes to the truth. I must have touched her heart as I pushed her. If that is true, then she must remember me now as well. My heart monitor beeps repeatedly, causing a nurse to come to my room. 

“Myoui-san, are you alright? Your heart is beating too fast.” She says, checking my forehead for a possible fever. 

“I’m alright,” I say as I try to calm down. “Waking up here made me panic for a second.”

“There is nothing to worry about, it seems that exhaustion and dehydration got to you and you blacked out. However we don’t know why your friend, Hirai-san is still unconscious.” 

Hearing her name makes my heart visibly beat faster. “Where is she, can I visit her?” I ask, a bit embarrassed. 

“Of course you can but you should rest for a bit yourself, Myoui-san. You just woke up, and she isn’t going anywhere.” She says reassuringly. “I’ll go check up on her, if that puts you at ease.” 

I nod, leaning back onto my bed. It takes her five minutes and forty seconds to come back to my room. 

“She is well, all her vitals are at a healthy level, she should wake up soon.” She says, yet it takes Momo two more days full of agony to wake up. I wait by her side the entire time, I tell the others that it is my responsibility since she fainted in my museum yet they still seem suspicious. Park Jihyo comes to visit and leaves flowers behind. Just as she is about to leave she even tells me “You two will need to explain some things later.” 

It passes by like torture yet all my misery melts away the second her eyelids flutter with consciousness. She groans lightly, moving her body to stretch as if she just had the best nap in the world. It takes her a moment but she opens her eyes suddenly and sits upright in panic. “Mina!”

I can’t help the tears that are streaming down my face, I can’t even begin to describe the relief that washes over me. All those years, long, hopeless and never-ending years finally came to an end. 

“I’m here, Momo.” 

She turns to look at me and I can finally see it in her eyes, the love that I’ve been yearning so long for, the affection that washes over me and leaves me in goosebumps. 

“Minari… You’re here.” 

“I never really left.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and, that, my dear readers, is the end of this story. I really like this story and how it turned out but my experimentation with 1st person is over lol. I just can't seem to write that good with it, but if you enjoyed, that's enough for me!   
> Feedbacks mean the world to me, so comment anything you want below ^^
> 
> btw I have another story called "take one, camera, action!", it is also wit twice but Samo this time, you can also check that out if you want. 
> 
> Thank you for reading this and until the next possible story, byee <3

**Author's Note:**

> hello! i hope you liked it. you can come talk to me about this story on [twitter](https://twitter.com/buzukiff) or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/buzukiff)  
> (pls do! i'm very friendly)


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